1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a document production system and the like for providing easy production of a document with an illustration or vignette.
2. Related Art of the Invention
Recently, home fax machines have spring into wide use to increase fax communications for purposes other than business. In addition, personal computers and PDAs (portable digital assistance) facilitate transmission or reception of fax data. These devices permit documents produced by users to be readily transmitted to others. However, handwritten documents without illustration or documents containing only text produced by means of the personal computer or the like are prosaic and dull, far from grabbing someone""s attention. Hence, a demand exists for a technique of permitting a simple operation to add illustrations or the like to the documents.
An image production system offering such a technique has been proposed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No.6(1994)-54165. This system includes, as shown in FIG. 38, an image data input section 201 for optically reading an image of a manuscript, a paint menu setting section 202 for setting a type and the like of an image to be superimposed, a paint address setting section 203 for specifying a position of the image to be superimposed, a data synthesizing section 204 for combining the manuscript image and the image to be superimposed, and an image output section 205 for outputting a composite image.
With such an arrangement, the image production system permits a user to select a suitable image, such as an illustration, and to specify a position of the image to be combined with the manuscript image read by a scanner or the like, so as to superimpose the illustration and the manuscript image on the specified places for outputting the resultant composite image.
In the image production system of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No.6-54165, however, the user is responsible for all the process of selecting the image to be superimposed, such as an illustration, and specifying the layout of the document, thus going through all the cumbersome operations. Hence, it is not easy for everyone to produce a document with an illustration added thereto.
Hence, a demand exists for a document production method and system which require the user of substantially no operation for producing documents wherein illustrations are added to inputted manuscript. There also exists a need for an effective inference scheme for accomplishing such intellectual and complicated operations.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method of and system providing easy superimposition of illustrations and the like.
A fuzzy inference method for inference based on fuzzy rules stated in the if-then form, of the present invention comprises the steps of:
clustering inference results prior to dufuzzificating the inference results, and
defuzzificating each unit of inference results clustered through the clustering procedure thereby obtaining at least one real value.
A fuzzy inference machine of the present invention comprises:
fuzzy rule storage means for storing fuzzy rules;
fuzzy inference means for performing fuzzy inference based on the fuzzy rules stored in said fuzzy rule storage means;
clustering means for clustering inference results given by said fuzzy inference means; and
defuzzificating means for defuzzificating a unit of inference results clustered by said clustering means.
An image production method of the present invention comprises the steps of:
detecting one or more descriptive regions exclusive of a background portion of a manuscript; calculating an image characteristic value of said descriptive region;
selecting one from a plurality of previously defined layout patterns based on said determined image characteristic value, the layout pattern including information at least about a position of the descriptive region; and
producing an image by laying out an image of said manuscript descriptive region or images of an illustration and said manuscript descriptive region according to the decided layout pattern.
An image production method of the present invention comprises the steps of:
detecting, based on manuscript data, only an image of a descriptive region exclusive of a background portion of a manuscript;
calculating at least one of image characteristic values of a horizontal length, a vertical length, a mean pixel luminance, a color tone, a luminance distribution and a luminance centroid of said descriptive region;
selecting one from a plurality of previously defined layout patterns based on said determined image characteristic value, the layout pattern including at least one of information items about a number of illustrations, a size of an illustration, a position of the illustration and a position of the manuscript descriptive region; and
producing an image by laying out respective images of the illustration and said manuscript descriptive region according to the decided layout pattern.
An image production system of the present invention comprises:
descriptive region detecting means for detecting, based on manuscript data, only an image of a descriptive region exclusive of a background portion of a manuscript;
image characteristic value calculating means for calculating at least one of image characteristic values of a horizontal length, a vertical length, a mean pixel luminance, a color tone, a luminance distribution and a luminance centroid of the descriptive region detected by said descriptive region detecting means;
layout pattern storage means for storing a layout pattern including at least one of information items about a number of illustrations, a size of an illustration, a position of the illustration, and a position of the manuscript descriptive region;
layout pattern selecting means for selecting a layout pattern based on the image characteristic value determined by said image characteristic value calculating means;
illustration storage means for storing the illustrations; and
superimposing means for combining the illustration stored in said illustration storage means with the image of said descriptive region according to the layout pattern selected by said layout pattern selecting means.
An image production method of the present invention comprises the steps of:
detecting, based on manuscript data, only an image of a descriptive region exclusive of a background portion of a manuscript;
calculating at least one of image characteristic values of a horizontal length, a vertical length, a mean pixel luminance, a color tone, a luminance distribution and a luminance centroid of said descriptive region image;
selecting, based on said determined image characteristic value, one from a plurality of previously defined schematic layout patterns including at least one of information items about a number of illustrations, an approximate position of an illustration and an approximate position of the descriptive region image;
schematically laying at positions said image of the manuscript descriptive region and said illustration according to the decided schematic layout pattern; and
making fine adjustment of the positions of the illustration and the manuscript descriptive region image based on said image characteristic value and then producing an image.
An image production system of the present invention comprises:
descriptive region detecting means for detecting, based on manuscript data, only an image of a descriptive region exclusive of a background portion of a manuscript;
image characteristic value calculating means for calculating at least one of image characteristic values of a horizontal length, a vertical length, a mean pixel luminance, a color tone, a luminance distribution and a luminance centroid of the descriptive region image detected by said descriptive region detecting means;
schematic layout pattern storage means for storing a schematic layout pattern including at least one of information items about a number of illustrations, an approximate position of an illustration and an approximate position of the manuscript descriptive region image;
schematic layout pattern selecting means for selecting a schematic layout pattern based on the image characteristic value determined by said image characteristic value calculating means;
layout fine adjustment means for deciding a precise layout positions in the schematic layout pattern based on the image characteristic value determined by said image characteristic value calculating means, the schematic layout pattern selected by said schematic layout pattern selecting means;
illustration storage means for storing the illustrations; and
superimposing means for combining the illustration stored in said illustration storage means with said image of the descriptive region according to the layout decided by said layout fine adjustment means.
An image production method of the present invention comprises the steps of:
detecting, based on manuscript data, only an image of a descriptive region exclusive of a background portion of a manuscript;
calculating at least one of image characteristic values of a horizontal length, a vertical length, a mean pixel luminance, a color tone, a luminance distribution and a luminance centroid of said descriptive region image;
selecting, based on said determined image characteristic value, one from a plurality of previously defined schematic layout patterns including at least one of information items about an approximate position of an illustration and an approximate position of the manuscript descriptive region image;
selecting, based on said image characteristic value, one from a plurality of previously defined segmental layout patterns to be laid in an area of illustration superimposed on the decided schematic layout pattern, the segmental layout pattern including at least one of information items about a number of illustrations, a size of an illustration and a position of the illustration; and
laying out the illustration and the image of the descriptive region according to the decided schematic layout pattern and segmental layout pattern for combining the illustration with the image of the manuscript descriptive region.
An image production system of the present invention comprises:
descriptive region detecting means for detecting, based on manuscript data, only an image of a descriptive region exclusive of a background portion of a manuscript;
image characteristic value calculating means for calculating at least one of image characteristic values of a horizontal length, a vertical length, a mean pixel luminance, a color tone, a luminance distribution and a luminance centroid of the descriptive region image detected by said descriptive region detecting means;
schematic layout pattern storage means for storing a schematic layout pattern including at least one of information items about an approximate position of an illustration and an approximate position of the manuscript descriptive region image;
schematic layout pattern selecting means for selecting said schematic layout pattern based on the image characteristic value determined by said image characteristic value calculating means;
segmental layout pattern storage means for storing a segmental layout pattern including at least one of information items about a number of illustrations, a size of an illustration and a position of the illustration;
segmental layout pattern selecting means for selecting said segmental layout pattern based on the image characteristic value determined by said image characteristic value calculating means;
illustration storage means for storing the illustrations; and
superimposing means for combining the illustration stored in said illustration storage means with said image of the descriptive region according to the layout selected by said segmental layout pattern selecting means.